For today’s post we will tackle the question the Skeptic Annotated Bible asked: How many of Bethlehem and Netophah’s offspring returned from Babylon?
Here are the answers which the skeptic believes indicate a Bible contradiction:
179
“the men of Bethlehem, 123; 22 the men of Netophah, 56;” (Ezra 2:21-22)
188
“the sons of Bezai, 324;” (Nehemiah 7:26)
(All Scriptural quotation comes from the New American Standard Bible)
Here’s a closer look at whether or not there is a contradiction:
- When dealing with skeptics’ claim of Bible contradictions it seems one can never be reminded enough of what exactly is a contradiction. A contradiction occurs when two or more claims conflict with one another so that they cannot simultaneously be true in the same sense and at the same time. To put it another way, a Bible contradiction exists when there are claims within the Bible that are mutually exclusive in the same sense and at the same time.
- One should be skeptical of whether this is a Bible contradiction given the Skeptic Annotated Bible’s track record of inaccurately handling the Bible. See the many examples of their error which we have responded to in this post: Collection of Posts Responding to Bible Contradictions. Of course that does not take away the need to respond to this claim of a contradiction, which is what the remainder of this post will do. But this observation should caution us to slow down and look more closely at the passages cited by the Skeptic Annotated Bible to see if they interpreted the passages properly to support their conclusion that it is a Bible contradiction.
- The skeptic tries to pit Ezra 2:21-22 as affirming the claim “179 of Bethlehem and Netophah’s offspring returned from Babylon” against Nehemiah 7:26 as affirming “188 of Bethlehem and Netophah’s offspring returned from Babylon.”
- One must always figure out the context of the verses the skeptic cited.
- The book of Ezra was written before the book of Nehemiah. The purpose of the book of Ezra records God’s fulfillment of bringing back the nation of Israel after 70 years of captivity. The first six chapters of Ezra record Zerubbael’s leadership in leading the exiles to return to build the alter in Jerusalem. Chapter 7-10 record how 80 years after Zerubbabel’s first trip Ezra journeyed to Jerusalem with a second group and how God used Ezra to bring about reform (William MacDonald, Believer’s Bible Commentary, 482).
- The book of Nehemiah record the third great leader of the Jewish return and restoration to the Promise Land after the Exile. Nehemiah was originally a cup bearer to the Persian King who thirteen year after Ezra’s expedition he was burden for the conditions of Jerusalem (William MacDonald, Believer’s Bible Commentary, 482). So God use Nehemiah to restore the city walls of Jerusalem and also other spiritual and moral reforms.
- Knowing the background of both books we can see that the time between Ezra 2 and Nehemiah 7 is about a period of 93 years or so.
- Knowing there is a 93 years period between Ezra 2 and Nehemiah 7 help us to understand the possible reasons for the differences of both chapters’ listing.
- First off In Ezra 2:1 it seems to indicate the list is giving an account of those who decided to depart Babylon in order to return to the promise land: “Now these are the people of the province who came up out of the captivity of the exiles whom Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon had carried away to Babylon, and returned to Jerusalem and Judah, each to his city.“
- The purpose of listing the first generation’s return to the Jerusalem in Nehemiah 7 seems to be for the reason of organizing a new genealogy in Nehemiah’s day by first basing it upon the template of the first genealogy of the first generation. Note Nehemiah 7:5: “Then my God put it into my heart to assemble the nobles, the officials and the people to be enrolled by genealogies. Then I found the book of the genealogy of those who came up first in which I found the following record:” The different purposes must be remembered.
- Considering that Ezra 2:1 mentioned that the list in Ezra 2 are those who left the captivity in Babylon to return to Jerusalem we must remember that it is situated in a context in which Ezra 1 the people have not arrived yet to Jerusalem while the people arrived in the end of chapter 2 and beginning of chapter 3 of Ezra. It is reasonable to understand the listing of names and numbers in Ezra refer to those who departed Babylon. But just because one departed from Babylon for the promise land does not mean everyone would have arrived. Even with modern military units when we walk on foot hiking somewhere it doesn’t mean 100% of us arrive at our destination especially if there’s some incredible distance to travel; why won’t be surprised with civilians and families traveling that some will not arrive at their final destination for whatever reason?
- Thus Nehemiah 7’s listing might be of those who actually did arrive in Jerusalem and the promise land and not just a listing of those who attempted to return back to Jerusalem and the promise land.
- Also even upon their arrival to the promise land that doesn’t mean there’s a census done right away; there’s lots to do to settle in and the work of census for a genealogy might be a significant time later when things are more stable.
- Also given there’s 93 years between the two listing we can understand the latter listing in Nehemiah 7 might be a count of the population at a given specific time. Don’t forget population changes up and down for many reasons: death, births, young men coming of age in which they are now counted as adults, etc.
- Keep in mind the differences between 179 and 188 is only 9. A large group of hundreds amount of men and their families as they head out of Babylon can easily have 9 more young men come of age and considered adults when they get to the promise Land and have individual journeying and augmenting the group over time.
- There is no contradiction here. Seems the skeptic needs to learn of How to Handle Bible Contradictions.
- We shouldn’t miss that worldviews are at play even with the skeptic’s objection to Christianity. The worldview of the author of the Skeptic Annotated Bible actually doesn’t even allow for such a thing as the law of non-contradiction to be meaningful and intelligible. In other words for him to try to disprove the Bible by pointing out that there’s a Bible contradiction doesn’t even make sense within his own worldview. Check out our post “Skeptic Annotated Bible Author’s Self-Defeating Worldview.”
Very good post
Thank you sir! Are you a guava farmer??
I found the answer satisfying for my rational outlook
Thanks for the great insight and refutation. Well done!
Well done as always with these non contradictions!!!!
Thanks!! How was classes for you this week?? What are you guys going over with Greek?
I am loving my Greek class and professor. My other class, just not good.
Although you are addressing the skeptic, your audience is broader. It includes people like myself who don’t particularly care how many there were, but once I notice the difference in some counts I ask myself what do I mean by “inerrancy” in the Bible. It needs to accommodate such differences in the surviving texts we currently have.
Point 6 makes sense until I realize not all numbers changed nor did the total. It sounds like the author of Nehemiah needed to update Ezra’s account for some reason.
The most obvious reason to me is that it was discovered that some men were incorrectly assigned to a few of the groups. They couldn’t update the original scrolls because they had already been copied and not all copies could be changed 93 years later. They were adjusted in Nehemiah for better accuracy.
Alternatively, the discrepancy could be due to a scribal error in the manuscript tradition that survived for us today. All that scribe checked was that the counts totaled to 42,360. Later scribes might have noticed the discrepancy, but did not know how to fix it.
I wonder if these explanations are problematic in terms of biblical inerrancy? I don’t think they are, but I am no expert on this.
I think acknowledging scribal errors doesn’t undermine inerrancy. The clearest and nuanced statements on inerrancy is the Chicago statement on inerrancy, have you heard of it or read it? It’s by conservative Christians and I think scribal error doesn’t go against inerrancy since we say the origiNal is without error.
I am going to have to look up the Chicago Statement
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Thanks for the thorough rebuttal!
I hit the “send” button by mistake.
…I see Steve/Stephen Wells is at the Ezra/Nehemiah cherry tree again. An objective researcher at an early point would have questioned why the data between the two books is different, but not Wells.
You’re welcome with both comments! I read today Poland sent a convoy of more Ammo to Ukraine and that it arrived. Been praying and thinking also of neighboring counties like Poland. Don’t know if you know of more ways Poland is helping. I imagine this is on your mind today
Thanks, Jimmy. I heard Poland is taking in any and all Ukrainian refugees without hesitation. This is a obviously a nightmare for Poland because of the horrific terror Ukrainians are being subjected to, but also because Poles are now going to have another Putin puppet on their border in addition to Belarus.
Hope you’re having a good Friday. Yeah, I’ve been thinking and praying about this Ukraine situation quite a bit today.
Good comeback. I would not be able to see this on my own
I admire your patience and dedication refuting these attempts to discredit God’s Word.
Peace, joy and blessings for your weekend.
Thanks! Ive been following the war every night and I really should be sleeping and I barely was able to squeeze this post out. I imagine you too are praying and following the news about Ukraine?
A vídeo showing Ukrainian Christians in an underground railway station praying and singing praises to Jesus was sent. It brought tears to my eyes. I pray the God will use His people during this time of war and uncertainty to reach many with the gospel.
Have a blessed Sunday as you minister in the power of the Holy Spirit brother Jim.
God bless you
Good Grief, He is at it again. 😦
He is at it again!! And I’m at it Again praying for Steve Wells to repent and come to Christ!
Amen.
Thank you for this Jim! 93 years apart! Seems it would really be strange if the figures read the same!
You are welcome! How are you doing these days? Been caught up praying and reading a lot on Ukraine. I imagine you are doing some art projects this weekend?
Well, maybe some art. More creative writing on “The GlymyreScape Game Master’s Guide”, I suspect. I’ve almost got all the systems worked out and ready for writing and illustrating. It’s supposed to supplement the player’s manual.
These scoffers really need to study the Bible first before they type things up online, it makes them look foolish
Studying doesn’t seem the best strength of so-called “free thinkers”
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This is thorough and done with precision
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